Thais to vote in February for first time since invalidated 2014 poll

It has been an improbable pipe dream for the people of Thailand in recent years but finally, it seems, the country is set to go to the polls. In just under two months, according to the country’s election commission, Thais will be given the chance to exercise their democratic right for the first time since elections in 2014 were invalidated. The scheduled vote on 24 February follows four years of oppressive and undemocratic rule by a military junta, known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), which took power in a bloodless coup in 2014. Many Thais remain sceptical that the long-awaited election – pushed back multiple times by the military junta on the dubious pretext that the country was not ready – will even happen, let alone do much to change the political structure of the country. Thailand’s notoriously heavy-handed laws around freedom of speech will also still be in place. But most are in agreement that any legitimacy the junta once claimed to rule Thailand without a democratic mandate has long since run out. “This will not be a fair election,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. “But it is a necessary first step for Thailand to regain some balance. There is a long way to go yet.” Due to a rewriting of the whole Thai political system since the last valid election in 2011, determining how the election will play out is not easy but one… [Read full story]